


Blue Jeans

by nerdofthenile



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Basically, College as well, Get you a friend like Shiro, Inspired by Lana Del Rey, Inspired by Music, M/M, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Shiro is the bestest of best friends, Small Towns, big dreams, how do I summary, or tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 10:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11228697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdofthenile/pseuds/nerdofthenile
Summary: Blue jeans.White shirt.Walked into the room and completely turned his life upside down.





	Blue Jeans

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I reheard this song and this idea popped into my head an instant later and I thought HOLY QUIZNACK I should wrote it maybe? And then I word vomited this. It was supposed to be shorter, but then it wasn't. 
> 
> I have a million other projects I'm working on, but heRE I AM WRITING ANGST!
> 
> This was inspired by the song "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Rey. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

_ Blue jeans _

_ White shirt _

 

He never was lonely. He just prefered to be alone. 

 

They called him what he wanted to be called.  _ The weird guy, the one who sits under the bleachers like a cliche nobody, the type you see in the movies. The one who only knows how to say “yes” and “no” and “leave me alone”. You know, that kid.  _

 

He moved around a lot, but he always wanted the same thing. He wanted peace and quiet, and he got that alone. There was nothing wrong with him, no medical diagnosis. Just a love for space and distance. An introvert who really embraced the introvert title. For a while, they let him be like that.  

 

Then he hit high school. A  new high school. 

 

The teachers decided it would be best to get him a “buddy” to help him transition into the new high school setting. They thought he was too nonsocial. “This will help you make friends,” the counselor had reassured him, “It’s nothing bad. Just a way for you to meet people.”

 

He didn’t need a “buddy”. He didn’t need help. He just personally didn’t want friends. He just wanted his room door locked and his earbuds in, blasted up to the highest volume, lights out and himself under the covers. 

Until he met his “buddy”. 

 

_ Walked into the room _

_ You know you made my eyes burn _

 

He knew he was screwed when he saw him. Big blue eyes, tousled brown hair, tan skin the color of caramel. He smiled and he saw a million galaxies. 

 

He wore a white T-shirt and clean blue jeans.

 

It was boring and unsuspecting outfit, but somehow, it fit him perfectly. Simple, but happy. Content. 

 

He went up to where he was was seated and held out his hand. One perfect, lithe hand, calloused with fingernails bitten down to stubs.

 

And he said, “Hey, Keith right? I'm Lance, welcome to our school I guess! Kind of a trashy place to be honest, but I mean, come on. What did you expect, it's high school!”

This would not be the first instance he had babbled at the worst times.

 

_ It was like James Dean _

_ For sure _

_ You’re so fresh to death and sick as ca-ca-cancer _

 

Lance showed him around. He was right, it was kind of a dump. But he was less focused on the school and more on Lance. The way he got enthusiastic about the cafeteria and the gym, but thoughtful when it came to the classrooms. “This is Dr. Sendak’s room,” he’d say, “Pretty swell guy, but I’m half positive he wants to suffocate us all through homework. Or just suffocate us in general.” Or, “Ooooh, you’ll like this one. Miss Shay? Music teacher. Top. Notch. She is the best. She brought cookies in on midterms week? Soooo good, dude. I’d say she’s hot, but I’m half sure one of my friends is crushing on her, sooooooooooo….”

 

Lance liked to make gestures when he talked. He stared at Lance’s teeth when he talked. He decided he liked when he talked. 

 

_ You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop _

_ But you fit me better than my favourite sweater, and I know _

 

Lance introduced him to all his friends. He memorized them and their personalities pretty quickly. 

 

Hunk. He liked culinary arts. He also liked cats. 

 

Pidge. Computer nerd. She could bite your hand off if she wanted to. 

 

Allura. Math wiz and cheerleader captain. She was very energetic. 

 

Shiro. Exchange student. He smiled and talked softly. He liked him a lot. 

 

Lance. 

 

Lance liked vanilla ice cream and the blue Jolly Ranchers. Lance liked biology and he liked Diego Luna. Lance liked winter best because he liked to ice skate with his family on the lake in the back of his home. Lance liked blueberry pancakes and still thought that Internet Explorer was fast. 

 

Lance hated his music, especially MCR, because he always left the room screaming lalalalala whenever he turned it on (Pidge has caught on to this and has decided to wreak havoc on Lances iTunes account). 

 

Lance loved hip hop music. And he could really dance to it. His hips were memorizing.

 

He also really liked to explore. He wished he had remembered that when he lralized he was in love with him. 

 

_ That love is mean, and love hurts _

_ But I still remember that day we met in December, oh baby! _

 

He grew to like Lance’s friends against his own will. He tasted Hunk’s cooking. He gamed with Pidge. He took photos of Allura and her team after the football team championship. He had talks with Shiro well after school, talking about his adopted life and Shiro’s move into America from Japan. 

 

But he liked talking to Lance. Lance was easy to talk with. Lance was easy to tease. To fight with. To admire the way he walked. And talked. The way he carried himself. Confidence. 

 

He wanted that. But he didn’t have it. 

 

_ I will love you 'til the end of time _

 

He mentioned it to Shiro first. He immediately encouraged it, said “Why not take the risk?”

 

_ I would wait a million years _

 

Pidge said, “Remember to try and smile?” Hunk hugged him and said “Finally!”

 

_ Promise you'll remember that you're mine _

 

Allura gave an enthusiastic “Yay!”

 

_ Baby can you see through the tears _

 

He asked him the last week of school before April break. He didn’t get a straightforward answer. What he got was a skin scorching smile, and twitch of his perfect, lithe, calloused hands. 

 

_ Love you more _

_ Than those b****es before _

 

And then his lips were on his. 

 

_ Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember, oh baby ooh _

 

Warm. Soft. He breathed his soul, his spirit, his heart into that kiss. It was everything he could have ever imagined. And that was answer enough. 

 

_ I will love you til the end of time _

 

~

 

_ Big dreams, gangster _

_ Said you had to leave to start your life over _

 

“Lance, that’s ridiculous.”

 

It was the middle of senior year, and after almost four years of dating Lance he still didn’t understand him sometimes. Understanding him was like trying not to drown in a fish tank. You reach the top for a breath only to start to sink again until you didn’t have enough air, and had to repeat the process. Just when he thought he had him down to a science, he said things like this. 

 

“I want to make something big, Keith,” he said, lying across his lap and gazing up into a star filled night. “I want to be something, y’know? Not… not just a high school grad on the path of Here’s-What-Everyone-Does-Once-They-Get-Out-Of-High-School. I want to know things, and do stuff.” He flung his arms out over his head. “I’ve never even been past the general store in town.”

 

He nodded, combing his hand through Lance’s hair on instinct. It was similar to petting a kitten. He didn’t respond. Sometimes it was better to just listen to Lance until he had exhausted himself. 

 

“This trip they’re doing? It’s going to Brazil, Keith.  _ Bra. Zil.  _ Like, who lives here that had gone to Brazil, hm? Hm? No one, that’s who.” His smile was wide as he dreamt aloud. “I’m gonna go on this trip, Keith, and we’re gonna make something big. We’re gonna find some kind of rare bird thing that no one has seen before and make it biiiiig.”

 

Lance suddenly sits up and turns on Keith, wildly waving his arms around while making the dorkiest face he’d ever seen. He laughed, and he rarely ever laughed more than once or twice every few months, but Lance had not let him go even a day without at least a smile. He would usually do something weird to break him open, like this. 

 

“What are you doing?” He asked. 

 

“My mating dance,” he rolled around in the grass, “this is what the new bird will do once we find it.”

 

He wanted to object and tell Lance that he should stay here in town. Wanted to remind him of what he’d miss. Hunk’s end-of-school cookout. Pidge’s senior programming project. Allura’s last pep rally. Shiro’s valedictorian speech. But a part of him knew that Lance already knew what he’d be missing. 

 

But his eyes showed dreams of bigger plans. 

 

_ I was like, “No please, stay here, _

_ We don't need no money we can make it all work,” _

 

At the train station, Lance looked like the perfect tourist. Even though he’d be gone for months, maybe a year on this trip, he looked so comfortable and excited, it would be easy to think he’d only be gone a week.

 

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered in his ear while they hugged for the fiftieth time. 

 

“I won’t be gone forever, babe,” he smiled into his hair, “and I’ll write you guys and call and all that jazz.”

 

He pulled back and stared into Lance’s eyes. He’d always love that beautiful blue, wavery like the ocean and shiny as a pearl. Huge and full of love and fiery ambition. 

 

“When I come back,” Lance took his hands in his, “I’ll buy you whatever you want, and we can go wherever we want. This find will make us rich, Keith. Just wait. And I’ll make you the happiest gay alive.”

 

_ But he headed out on Sunday, said he'd come on Monday _

 

He stifled his giggle by kissing Lance full on the lips. Every time they kissed was just like the first. He wouldn't have it any other way. It seemed to last years, that one moment, until Lance pulled away at the sound of the train engines starting up.

 

“I love you,” Lance grinned, “and I'll see you soon, k?”

 

He waved as he disappeared through the train cart’s sliding doors and was gone.

 

~

 

_ I stayed up waitin', anticipatin', and pacin' _

_ But he was chasing paper _

 

At first, Lance kept his promise. He sent letters all the time, every Sunday a large stack of them would show up in his P.O. box and he’d share what Lance had written with the whole gang. And he’d call twice a week to talk about his findings, the team he was with, the way the Brazilian night look, and no less than three jokes about “Cuban heritage versus Brazilian heritage.” And at the end of every call, Lance would say to Keith, “I love you.”

 

And then it hit the news channel at around 7:00 on a Monday night.

 

Lance and his team  _ did _ find a new species of bird, a new kind of parrot that was thrilling the science world. He almost screamed. Lance had done it, somehow, had really found that new bird he had always gone on about. The report also detailed how the scientific team would be getting funded for more expeditions now as well as getting paid whopping salaries by a biology organization that wanted them to continue their work. 

 

Lance really did it. He was so proud. He couldn’t wait to tell Lance how proud he was, to put it all into words how amazing he was. Not just for the money, hell no, but that blooming pride that that was his boyfriend who was making headway in the science world. His. And he loved him for it, for achieving his dream, admired and adored and loved him more. 

 

He called him countless times, but the call was never picked up. He waited days for the call that never came. 

 

_ "Caught up in the game" ‒ that was the last I heard _

 

Days turned to weeks. He would have worried about Lance if he didn’t see him on the news in interviews all the time with a band of equally dorky youths. He knew Lance was fine. He knew he was alive and well. He had gone to ask his parents if they got contact from him and they said they got little calls here and there. 

 

But Lance never called him. Not even once. 

 

And every time the salary number was mentioned on the latest interview channel, Lance’s eyes would light up like they did that night under the stars. 

 

_ You went out every night _

 

Finally, the end of senior year. 

 

Hunk went off to culinary school. 

 

Pidge went straight into computer sciences, wanting to raise enough money to get into the engineering school she wanted. 

 

Allura went straight into the Peace Corps like her father had done, going to Nepal with a bright pink luggage case and a new Skype account to video chat with them all. 

 

Shiro went into medical school, no surprise. 

 

Everyone moved on. 

 

But he just couldn’t. 

 

_ And baby that's alright _

 

He got new friends after his other ones left. His new friends came in tall and short bottles. They were all the same, dull, yellow and browns and clears. 

 

Their names were Whiskey, Vodka, and Beer. 

 

And he liked them because they never talked back to him, never told hom to get over it, that he wasn’t coming back, wasn’t going to burst through that door, wasn’t going to sweep him off his feet and say “I love you” just one more time. And they made him feel better. They made things fuzzy. They made life go by fast.

 

They made money go by fast. 

 

They made everything go by fast. 

 

And they made him alone. Like he had wanted from the start. 

 

_ I told you that no matter what you did I'd be by your side _

 

It was two years alone with those bottles. Two years alone with himself and those bottles. Two years alone with himself, those bottles, and Lance’s name sitting heavy like lead on his lips. 

 

Two years of his life wasted.

 

And two years until Shiro found him lying on his moldy apartment floor, in his boxers and T-shirt with at least five empty vodka cans scattered around him, and he was sobbing about how the air felt stale. 

 

_ Cause Imma ride or die _

_ Whether you fail or fly _

 

He screamed when Shiro dragged him into the bathroom. He shrieked when Shiro practically ripped off his smelly clothes and then shoved him into the coldest shower of his life. He cried when Shiro covered him in a soft towel he didn’t even know he had. He sobbed more when Shiro gave him fresh clothes and sat him on the couch and gave him ramen noodles cooked fresh. 

 

“How did you know to find me?” he asked later. 

 

Shiro cocked his head. He looked more tired than usual. “You weren’t answering your phone anymore. Or anyone’s.” A dark shadow came over his features. “I figured that we should keep the number of disappeared friends to a minimum of one.”

 

It never occurred to him that Shiro could be mad with Lance for leaving without a trace. But seeing his friend get this protective all of a sudden definitely told him as much.

 

_ Cause imma ride or die _

_ Whether you fail or fly _

 

Shiro conveniently knew a job opening at the bar that rented his frat house during the day. He told him that he could get him an in if they left tomorrow. His frat roommate also conveniently dropped out, and the house was off campus of the school, so no one would know nor care if an extra person dropped in who wasn't in the school. He said his other fraternity friends wouldn't mind.

 

He cried into Shiro’s shoulder, this time crying his thanks instead. 

 

~

 

_ I just want it like before _

_ We were dancing all night _

 

And now?

 

And now, he’ll see something and he’ll remember Lance.

 

A picture in Shiro’s new office will be blue, and he’ll think of his eyes.

 

Or he’ll be filing away papers for Shiro’s newest patient and they'll have one of Lance’s signature features. The nose, or the mouth, or the endearing smile. But it will never be Lance.

 

And sometimes a song would come on the radio, one they had always listened to. And he’d daydream

 

_ Then they took you away, stole you out of my life _

 

Shiro had been strict with him ever since he found him drunk in his apartment, and he tried to please him all the time. He owed him that much for all he had done to drag him out of the hole he had dug himself into after Lance left. He kept away from any alcohol. He brushed his teeth daily. He even showered a lot, though he didn’t every day. He was getting there. 

 

But of course, habits don’t just go away. Every month, for one night, Shiro went to volunteer at an animal shelter, just one night, to give his college friend a night off. And for that one night, Keith had free reign. 

 

And on that one night, he’d go to a bar for just a shot or two, and he’d watch the dancers and forget that without Shiro, he’d be dead by now, and the only reason why he had anything that he did was because Shiro picked him up where he was down. It was harmless, really. Just a way for him to relax and get away from the familiarity of the receptionists desk in Shiro’s office or the apartment they were renting until Shiro could get a mortgage going on a house. 

 

Harmless. 

Until. 

 

_ You just need to remember  _

 

He wore a white T-shirt and clean blue jeans.

 

That’s what he saw, across the bar. 

 

And he turns around and oh. 

 

He’s as gorgeous as ever. With the same goofy smile that fades as he sees him. It’s replaced with an inward struggle to try and recognize who the flushed skinned guy at the bar was, the one with the navy eyes and the black mullet. 

 

The one having internal conflict on whether to run at him and kiss him, run at him and punch him, or to leave. 

 

When Lance started to come towards him again, the one thing he was waiting for for all these years, his feet made the decision for him. 

 

_ I will love you 'til the end of time _

 

He couldn’t take this, not now. 

 

_ I would wait a million years _

 

He’d waited so long with only the bottles for company. 

 

_ Promise you'll remember that you're mine _

 

And only through Shiro’s help was he able to be back on his feet again. 

 

_ Baby can you see through the tears _

 

The cool night air bit him as he started to speed walk towards the apartment. He’d get a soda from the fridge, turn on the TV, and forget he’d ever seen him again. 

 

Again. He’d waited so long to see him again. But here he was, walking away.

Alone. Like he always wanted, right?

 

_ Love you more than those b*****s before _

 

He heard the club door open behind him. 

 

He heard Lance screaming his name. 

 

_ Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember, oh baby ooh _

 

“Keith! Keith, its me! Keith, wait!”

 

He heard him alright. But now, he had caught a crosswalk signal and was booking it to the other side. By the time he got there, cars were already streaming down the road, cutting Lance off from following him. He was still calling out to him. 

 

Keith thought. 

 

Keith took one of Shiro’s business cards from his pocket, the one that had the office address. He stuck it onto on the leftover nails tacked into a post next to the signal pole. He then began to jog home. 

 

Keith was done waiting. If Lance really wanted to come back to him now, he was going to have to find him. 

 

A small smile tugged at his lips.

 

Because Lance would never back down on one of his challenges. 

 

_ I will love you 'til the end of time _

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Aha...
> 
> Feef free to critique/comment!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and thank you so much for reading!


End file.
